Body, Body
by Bandita-Dieci
Summary: Elsa watches as Anna is executed.


Author's Note: This is a response to a meme on tumblr, but I figured it was good enough to be posted here. I hope that it is worth your time. (And, of course, I do not own Elsa or Anna or Arendelle. They are copyright to Disney, yes?)

Blood flowed down the newly thinned streets of Arendelle, staining the cobblestones a bright scarlet. Overhead the skies were a pale gray - the color of rain, some might say, but those who knew the kingdom best feared the onslaught of sleet and snow. On a normal day, laughter and joy filled the city, the sounds of a people in love with their fair queen, but today-

Today the people felt nothing more for their queen than the deepest of regrets.

In the hallowed halls of the queen's palace, the servants spoke not a word. What would they say? That there must have been a mistake? That the young princess would never, in a million years, commit such a grave crime as to murder - not one, not ten, but hundreds of men in the span of three years? All of these things had been said before a multitude of times and yet not one of them changed the queen's mind.

The evidence pointed to no one but Anna of Arendelle, and for months the queen fought against it, yelling, screaming, _pleading_ with no one but herself, refusing to believe that her baby sister, the one who believed in her, the one who brought her back from the edge of despair, the one who'd chosen to _die for her_ would ever do something like this. Despite her responsibility to her people, Elsa might have spared Anna's life and searched for another way-

If not for Anna's confession.

Even then, Elsa hadn't believed her. It wasn't until her sister showed her the remains of three more men, their hearts and livers devoured raw, and offered her a heart of her own that Elsa - no, the queen clasped the murderer in iron shackles and led her away. After that, there could be no more denying who the villain truly was.

The queen of Arendelle condemned the fiendish killer to burn at the stake - the most painful of all the kingdom's execution methods. Some said it was out of disgust - that the queen still felt sick after being offered raw human flesh. Others said she wanted her sister to burn with the flickering flames of her own painful betrayal. But none suspected the truth.

Elsa chose Anna's fire because it was the one thing from which her ice could never save her.

The townspeople did not expect their queen to show up to the execution. If anything, they were afraid of what the princess's death would bring. Ever since her arrest, the queen locked herself away in her castle, not allowing even her most faithful servants inside. Still the gates stood open and creaking in the wind, the sky grew ever more clouded, and as of yet not a flake of snow or a drop of hail appeared.

Before her execution, Anna was given one last request. It was a custom of the queen to do what she could to grant these "favors" on behalf of the human hidden within the monster. The young princess had asked to see her sister one last time, her voice breaking and hesitant. Her guard patched the request through to the queen.

It was denied.

Anna approached the stake with grace she'd learned from her sister. She interlaced her fingers together as guards tied her around the tall pole, breathing deep, slow breaths as they piled straw and twigs around her cold body. Her teal eyes searched the crowd with hope but no expectation, and when there was no trace of her platinum-haired sister in the crowd, she let out the breath she'd been holding in.

She wasn't coming. She wouldn't come. How could she come?

It had been hell enough, she knew, when Elsa thought she was frozen, worse even than the traumatic event when they were children. Her frozen heart was the culmination of all her sister's fears, and when Elsa learned to control her powers, she'd thought there was no need to fear anymore.

What Elsa didn't know was how long Anna hid her own monstrous form from her sister. It was easy to love and accept the sister who was afraid of killing you when you also wanted to be loved and accepted by the sister you were afraid you would kill.

The clock struck one, and the guard nearest her gave her an apologetic look. He held the torch up and hesitated just a moment, as if he, too, were listening for a pardon that would never arrive. Then he plunged the fire into the kindling's heart.

"Anna."

The wind snatched her name away in the same beat she heard it, and her eyes, frantic, searched the crowd again. It was only then that she realized one simple thing: The queen of Arendelle was never meant to be part of these proceedings.

But her sister, Elsa, couldn't stay away.

She wore gloves, teal ones, the color of her sister's eyes, as she watched the flames lick at her skin. The chill air, even at the height of summer, brushed her skin, and she drew the simple homespun cloak tighter about her shoulders. No matter what she did, she couldn't stop the shivering.

Her eyes met Anna's once - they only needed that one glance and they held to it for what felt like an eternity, even when the light that was once in those teal eyes dulled and the stench of her burning flesh rose in the air like that of an abandoned skunk carcass.

When the crowd - what little of it was there - turned away, disappearing one by one into the cold, Elsa crept forward. The fire flickered high into the sun and hours passed until nothing was left but ash and a cloaked woman kneeling, scraping at the dying embers, searching for some last tattered piece of cloth or scraped bone to remember her beautiful sister by.

The snow never fell.


End file.
